At this week’s meeting of the PSU VoIP tech folks, we had a short review of the Unity Connection upgrade from a couple weeks ago and discussed getting to the next version, 8.x, where we will have the ability (though not the scripting and configuration, yet) to open the web interface to end users.
I think the primary feature of interest to end users on the web interface will be the visual voicemail, called Unity Connection Inbox. But what may drive getting the web interface up and running, at first, will be the ability for end users to change their own PIN.
Very roughly speaking, from some stats I received a few weeks ago, our NOC gets about 1,000 voicemail PIN resets a year. They account for 18% of all voice-related tickets and 11,000 minutes of staff time.
With the web interface, voicemail users could log in with other credentials they know and use daily–their single sign-on access accounts–and reset their voicemail PIN. The concept is simple but the implementation, at least in our environment, may not be.
11,000 minutes is a lot of time for changing PIN numbers. Remember Unity Connection has open API’s so you can also reset the PIN number for voicemail through another portal (i.e. your portal that you change your single sign on ID password). We do this and sync Unity PIN + Extension Mobility PIN so they are the same. The users sign into the portal and simply update PIN and the back end system pushes the PIN number to both systems.
Just another idea to keep it simple as rolling out the Unity Web portal interface may require additional user training.